Italian Food Fun Facts

The internet is full of fabulous fun facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and Italian food fun facts. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided that when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with you, our readers, in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Italian Food fun facts.

Italian Food Fun Facts: Italy is a nation of regions and each village, town, and city developed a way of cooking unique to the area. Sauces, pastas, sausages, wines, cheeses, and breads differ not just from region to region, but from town to town. Authentic Italian food known today came into existence over many years of trial and error, mixing new ideas with old, and creating dishes with the freshest ingredients available.

February 13th is National “Eat Italian Food” Day

Prosciutto was banned for export to the U.S. until 1989. Mortadella and Speck were outlawed until 2000. Other meats, including cotechino and zampone, are still banned today.

Italians do not put meatballs on spaghetti: the average Italian meal is divided in two parts, primo piatto and secondo piatto.

It was not until the 1700’s until tomato sauce was included with spaghetti in Italian kitchens.

Italian wedding soup is not a traditional soup served at weddings.

The term Neapolitan Ice Cream originated in the U.S. in the late 19th century, and is presumably a reference to the 3 layered ice cream cakes of Tortoni, a Neapolitan.

There are more than 600 pasta shapes produced worldwide.

In the 13th century, the Pope set quality standards for pasta.

The average person in Italy eats more than 51 pounds of pasta every year. The average person in North America eats about 15-1/2 pounds per year.

Most Italians eat pasta at least once a day. But that doesn’t mean they eat the same thing every day! There so many ways to eat pasta, with a variety of different toppings and sauces, that they never get bored.

Each region in Italy has it’s favourite ways to eat pasta. In Rome, two classics are the carbonara (with eggs and pancetta, which is like bacon) and the cacio e pepe (with cheese and pepper).

Italian Food Fun Facts We Missed

Let us know if we missed any Italian food fun facts in the comment section below. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.